


le Fey

by fizzyblogic (phizzle)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/fizzyblogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan isn't a girl, and can't understand why everybody else insists that he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	le Fey

At the age of five, Morgan declares he will die in battle. He stands proud as he says it, hands on hips, his face set. Uther laughs.

“You’re a very valiant young lady, Morgana,” he chuckles. Morgan wants to throw something.

“I’m not a lady!” he says, for what feels like the ten thousandth time.

“You may not be now, but you will be some day,” his nurse bustles at him. Morgan ducks away from her hands, always brushing mud off his skirts, always clucking under her breath, always _fussing_.

Morgan’s only friend is Arthur, who pushes him over in muddy puddles and calls him a girl. Morgan pushes back, but Arthur only laughs. Arthur is mean. Morgan doesn’t like him. He only keeps trying to play because there’s no one else.

*

Gwen is ten years old. She’s the daughter of a blacksmith, her mother just died, and Uther has said it’s about time Morgan had a maid. Gwen curtseys all the time and looks down at the floor, and when Morgan grabs her hand and pulls her along with a, “Come on, let’s be Romans! I’ll be a centurian, you can be — you can be a Saxon lord,” Gwen follows.

“I don’t want to be a Saxon lord,” she says, and then she goes quiet. “Um. Sorry, miss.”

Morgan drops her hand. “Don’t call me miss.” They’re outside, at least, they made it that far. “Come on.”

“Where are you going?” Quintus, the guard assigned to look after Morgan, sounds resigned.

“To the woods, come on!” Morgan cries, wanting to whoop. “It’s not far,” he adds to Gwen, who quirks her mouth in a half-smile. She sort of looks like she wants to cry, and Morgan stops tugging so hard.

They get to Morgan’s favourite tree, a few yards into the wood, and he sits. Gwen drops next to him. She giggles, then claps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “I’m sorry miss, I didn’t mean to be disrespectful miss —”

“ _Stop_ calling me miss,” Morgan snaps at her. He feels bad right away; Gwen’s eyes fill. “Quintus,” Morgan says, voice as commanding as he can make it, “leave us. We wish to play.”

“Yes, miss,” Quintus pants, with a tiny bow. He moves out of sight; not far, Morgan knows that, but far enough away that he can whisper and not be heard.

“Gwen, please don’t cry,” he says, taking most of the sound out of his voice. “Can you keep a secret?”

Sniffing and gulping, Gwen nods. Morgan hands her a handkerchief.

“I’m sorry I shouted. I just really don’t like being called miss.” He glances around, checks that they’re definitely alone. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?”

Gwen swallows audibly. “C-can I tell my daddy?”

Morgan’s met the blacksmith, knows he’s a man who can be trusted. “Only if you make him swear not to tell anybody else. Can you do that?” Gwen nods. “Okay.” Morgan checks around one last time, leans in and whispers, “I’m not really a girl.”

Gwen’s eyes go wide. “What — what do you mean, are you — are you a _boy_?” Her voice goes squeaky on the last word; Morgan shushes her with a movement and a hiss.

“Yes,” he says, once he’s sure nobody heard. “I don’t know how, but somebody mixed me up and said I was a girl. But I’m not, and everybody _says_ that I am, so they call me miss and Morgana and treat me like I’m a princess. I’m not a _princess_. I’m a _prince_.”

Gwen’s eyes are round. “Doesn’t anybody know they made a mistake?” She looks about, as though expecting officials of the court to spring out of the woods and produce rolls declaring Morgan’s princely status. “I mean, can’t they — can’t they _tell_?”

“No.” Morgan just manages to stop himself short of laughing; it’s a distinctly silly concept, someone being able to _tell_ that kind of mistake, but he doesn’t want to make Gwen cry again. “Nobody knows. I did try to tell them, but they just laughed at me.” He pokes at the trunk of the tree, yanking a little wood off it. It dispels the memory.

“So they all think you’re a girl, when really, you’re not.” Gwen’s eyes are even bigger and rounder than they were, if that’s possible. “But, I mean — when you bathe, don’t they see your — um —”

“What, what, my what?” Morgan isn’t _sure_ , but it sounds as if Gwen knows something about identifying boys from girls. Whatever it is, it’s making her blush.

“Um — my daddy and my brother, they um, they have this thing — it’s a thing all boys have and girls don’t, that’s what Daddy said to me. I’ve seen it when he bathes. It’s sort of … like, like a branch.” She points to a dead, cracked, fallen branch. “Like that, only with skin and between his legs. You should show yours to someone, they’ll fix it so everybody knows you’re a prince.”

Morgan stares really hard at the branch. “But I — between his legs?” Gwen nods. Morgan looks down, shifts, and mumbles, “I don’t, um, Idon’thaveone.”

“What?” Gwen leans closer, and Morgan sighs.

“I don’t — I don’t have anything between my legs. No branches.” He lifts his skirt up. “See?”

Gwen blinks for a minute, looking, then blushes and draws away. “It um, that’s what I look like. Between my legs. You’re a — you’re a girl.”

Morgan puts his hands on Gwen’s shoulders and pushes as hard as he can. She falls against the tree, and he jumps up. “I’m _not_ a girl,” he says, trying not to shout or cry or kick her. “I’m _not I’m not I’m not_.” And he runs, as fast as he can, back to the castle. There are shouts behind him but he doesn’t care, he just runs as the tears make it so hard to see that he follows his feet. He can feel himself bumping into people, hear more shouts, but he doesn’t care, he just runs and runs and runs until he gets to his chambers and bangs the door closed and flings himself onto his bed and it’s only then that he realises he hasn’t stopped saying it. He says it now, over and over, sobbing into his eiderdown, “I’m not I’m not I’m not I’m not I’m not I’m not I’m not.”


End file.
